ANNIE Markey was nanny to a 12-year-old in London in the 90s who, from afar, loved Robbie Williams which such tweeny intensity she insisted she be referred to as his wife. Pressured by her young charge to name a favourite member of boy band Take That, Annie found herself similarly “wed” to Jason Orange. Now, meeting Robbie for the first time in the flesh, she confesses she never really got over it.

ROBBIE, remember about a thousand years ago when you were just starting out and you were skinny so your head looked HUGE but you were obviously the ’ullo lads, cheeky one in Take That, as opposed to the blond boring one (Gary), the vocally-challenged one (Jason), the little short fella (Mark) and the one no-one can remember even now?

Well, back then I knew everything about you being, as I was, married to the vocally-challenged one and nanny to a 12-year-old who would only answer if I called her “Mrs Williams” and whose really expensive Designer Guild bedroom wallpaper was completely covered in posters of all four (sorry, five) of you in matching boy band suits, mostly white and one with lightning bolts if I remember correctly, but always super-coordinated in the way of a really hip and ironic fashion show.

These were the things I knew because I (aka Mrs Jason Orange) sat for many long, happy hours with your wife, Mrs Williams, and piles of Take That magazines that had become kind of tatty but never failed to yield some new morsel of slightly stalky insight: Your star sign (Aquarius), middle name (Peter), favourite colour (blue – fans now say pink now, but back then it was all “oh my God Mrs Orange, Oh my God, it’s my favourite too”), footy team (Port Vale), what you did when you left school (double glazing sales, which seemed weird given that was what my husband Jason Orange did too – I mean, what are the chances of two double glazing salesmen in one boy band – until I realised Jase had never been a glazing salesman, and I probably wasn’t a very good wife) and height (you weren’t as tall as my husband or the one no one can remember, but you were a veritable Petronas Tower alongside the boring one and the short one).

Irresistible. Take That in 1996. Picture: SuppliedSource: News Limited

They were great days. Once, I ended up at Wembley Arena, two seats up from Paula Yates (RIP), watching you and my husband and the other three move with the coordination of North Korean soldiers, only sexier, complicit in the knowledge we’d only got tickets thanks to the hysteria of my charge (your 12-year-old wife) and a connection her mum had with someone who worked for the Rolling Stones who’d pressured some poor bloke who worked for the promoter and thought the tickets were for Mick. Oh, how we squealed and sang and flapped our hands in that excited sort of way that’s quite cute in a 12-year-old girl.

Maybe not so much in her nanny.

We loathed those Spice Girls because they were SO MANUFACTURED AND HAD NO TALENT and were never going to last, let alone marry famous footballers or meet princes or Nelson Mandela or appear on Australian television or get millions to travel the world doing massive gigs for nostalgic twits. Ok, we didn’t know you were going to get it on with four of them, but trust me, they never loved you the way we did.

Robbie left Take That in 1995, leaving the remaining members a sartorially-splendid four-piece. Picture: SuppliedSource: News Limited

And even when I came back to Australia, and Take That were doing a concert and my sister wasn’t that sure her old sprung-seat Peugeot with the weird sticker urging fruit-lovers to “Eat Blueberries Now!” would make it to Australia’s Wonderland (also RIP) and only about 150 people turned up and most of them were boys also in well-coordinated gear, and I was really old enough to know better … Even then I remained a committed fan.

Robbie, it’s been a roller-coaster, and I can’t pretend my affections for you, or my former husband (we split soon after the Australia’s Wonderland gig), have quite the ardour they did back in those heady days. I’ve watched you fill endless stadiums solo, ripped and strutting and covered in tats, I’ve read about the drug binges, the weight gain, the falls and the redemption. And I’m still not sure if I bought your swing tracks because I like them and you’re all dapper now and a clean-living family man with a cute little daughter called Theodora and generally much more appealing to women of a certain age, or because of some strange yearning for the past.

Today, I got up super-early to meet you in the flesh at the Today Show and clapped when Karl Stefanovic called you the king of swing and hooted just a little bit but not really much because I’m quite old now, not that that stopped a whole lot of the other old people who were there.

And when you finally came out and you already had pink lippy on your cheek because you really are a very laddy lad and then proved you actually might swing both ways by planting a smacker full on Karl’s lips, I thought I’d play it cool and hang back at roughly the same proximity as when I saw you at Australia’s Wonderland all those years ago.

But in the end you got the better of me, and by the time you did Angels I had reverted to the olden days and older ways. I hung over the barrier; we had a brief, sweaty fingertip touch; then you disappeared back into the bowels of Channel Nine’s dressing rooms.

And later I held your cupcakes before they made it up to you (not the actual cakes individually, just the plate).

Ain’t obsession grand?

BTW – your 90s wife is now all grown-up and has married someone else. She has a baby now too. We should introduce her to Theodora.

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.